A federal judge temporarily barred the Trump administration from laying off roughly 90 percent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as she mulls whether it violates her previous order.
At a Friday hearing, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson prevented the agency from cutting off the employees’ computer access as planned later in the day until the judge holds a hearing near the end of the month.
“It’s not going to happen in the meantime,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to disburse 1,483 people into the universe and have them be unable to communicate with the agency anymore until we have determined whether that is lawful or not.”
The National Treasury Employees Union and other groups warned in a filing Thursday that the mass firings could violate Jackson’s order blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down the agency.
Deepak Gupta, the groups’ attorney, accused the agency of trying to keep the layoffs under wraps so the plaintiffs “would not be able to come to the court in an orderly fashion” before employees’ computer access is shut off Friday.
An appeals court partially paused Jackson’s order, but it still prevents the bureau from conducting a reduction in force without a “particularized assessment” that the laid off employees are unnecessary to carry out the agency’s statutory duties.
The Trump administration contends it followed that procedure and went line by line through the CFPB’s business units. The union, however, insists the broad scope and fast speed means no such assessment occurred, warning in a filing Thursday that “entire offices, including statutorily mandated ones, have or soon will be either eliminated or reduced to a single person.”
“That is not an unfamiliar position for the court to be in,” Jackson, an appointee of former President Obama, said of the discrepancy. “That’s exactly where we were before, and the only way to get to the bottom of it is to put people on the witness stand.”
Jackson scheduled the follow-up hearing for April 28. The plaintiffs also are expected to demand the CFPB produce additional internal documents as to how the layoffs were planned.
The groups initially sued acting CFPB Director Russell Vought in February, accusing the Trump administration of attempting to dismantle the consumer watchdog.
Shortly after taking on the role, Vought ordered the CFPB’s staff to stop work, closed the agency’s headquarters and fired probationary and term employees.
Amid concerns that officials were poised to lay off the vast majority of the CFPB’s workforce in mid-February, Jackson temporarily barred the administration from firing staff without cause or conducting a reduction in force.
CFPB employees later testified to the court that top officials still planned to conduct mass layoffs, as the judge weighed whether to grant a broader injunction against the administration.
Mark Paoletta, CFPB’s chief legal officer, in a sworn declaration ahead of Friday’s hearing said the agency’s leadership determined that the CFPB should move forward with just 200 employees.
“An approximately 200 person agency allows the Bureau to fulfill its statutory duties and better aligns with the new leadership’s priorities and management philosophy,” Paoletta wrote.
A CFPB employee who also filed a declaration with the court Friday painted a more frenzied picture of the push to cut agency staff led by a member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“DOGE member Gavin Kliger managed the RIF [reduction in force]. He kept the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out yesterday (April 17),” said the employee, identified as Alex Doe.
“Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent,” they added.
